28 November 2015 + Love Dare Day 1

Prayer

1. Confession

Scripture:

• Mark 7:20-23

Observations:

The passage here is talking about defilement in the greater context - can what a person takes in defile them? Jesus is directing his point to the Pharisees who had become obsesses with the minutiae of the laws, performing all the outward works necessary in order to become "clean" by their reckoning.

What Jesus is saying is that defilement comes from within. It's not something that we put on and neither is it removed by outward things we do. Therefore it is only something that can be changed by treating the heart, by asking God to renew our hearts.

Application:

When asking for God's forgiveness and seeking repentance, if we want any kind of true change, we need to address the heart. Any other change is like whitewashing over cracks - the foundation damage is still present and the cracks will continue to get worse. Only by rebuilding the foundation on what is true and right will repair the cracks.

Prayer:

Lord, I see a number of heart issues that need working on in myself: hedonism, self-obsession, turning my heart away from my wife, seeking emotional connection in everyone/-thing around me, not investing myself in my wife and how to love her.

Talking with her, it seems she needs a more outward display of the change you're working in me, Lord. I just don't know how to show it. Help me to meet her where she is and encourage her to hold on to you as you'e working in me.

~   ~   ~

The Love Dare

Day 1: Patience

This is one in which I find myself slowly lacking. I consider myself a patient person, but in recent weeks, I've found my patience wearing thinner and thinner towards my wife.

Prayer:

Lord, help me to increase in patience towards my wife. Help her to see that I love her and am taking steps to love her better. Through patience today, help me to break down some walls that have been built up during this last week. Help me to understand her and to meet her where she is.

27 November 2015

For the next while, I'll be posting through a series of passages given to me, which I'm calling "Struggling with Sin."

Prayer

1. Confession

Scripture:

• Psalm 51

Observations:

In this passage. we see David coming forward to God after the Bathsheba incident. His first response is to plead with God for mercy, acknowledging his sin. In verse 3, he writes " For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me," a verse and sentiment I can definitely understand, especially when I first read it on Tuesday.

After acknowledging his sin, he also acknowledges that God delights in a pure heart and right spirit and asks to be cleansed, that he may once again be in a right standing with God.

If I could sum up the key elements of this passage, they would be:

1. God, I recognise that I have sinned
2. I recognise that you delight in perfection
3. Cleanse me and remove my sin
4. Turn your face towards me once again
5. Allow me to praise you before others for what you have done

Application:

The elements given here are definitely different from what I've been doing. I've strayed so far from my confession of sin. In recent years, my confession has sounded something like this:

"Okay God, I screwed up again. Give me the strength so I can stop screwing up.

And in recent months/weeks, something more like this:

"Not again, God. Please give me your strength to push through. (not that it'll do anything.)"

Absolutely gone is any sign of contrition or brokenness. My challenge to myself is to incorporate the elements above into my process of registering my sin. Recognising my sin, recognising God's standard, asking for restoration, asking for communion with God again, and praising him in thanks.

Prayer:

Lord, you know my struggles. My past history with pornography and lust, my ways of ogling women and trying to get glances of things I shouldn't. You know my habitual "boob check", built up over 11 years. These are things which need to be gone from my life. I recognise that these things are all not of you. What you gave is intimacy with my wife and I haven't taken the time to really build that, instead turning my attentions to everything around me, leaving her abandoned an alone. I have clung to the lie I've believed since I was 13 instead of clinging to the blessing you have given me. 

Remove my sin from me, Lord, that I can pour into my wife, building her up. Help me to be completely satisfied in her, breaking my need for external validation and appreciation, finding it instead in you and in her. Cleanse my mind from the ghosts of pornography which haunt me. Break my habits of ogling women and remove from me the desire to do so. Build my foundation on you, clinging to you. Don't allow me to substitute my wife for all of these addictions and issues, because that will not solve anything, but help me to replace them with you, growing in you and being filled with your presence, that I would be able to love her genuinely, with your love.

I want to feel your presence again in my life. Break the callouses around my heart that I've built up for various reasons, keeping me from genuinely feeling, prompting me to chase after fleeting, shallow thrills instead of going deep.

I thank you for the restoration you give and for the faith you've built in me. Thank you for a wife who's committed to you and is seeking your glory over her own sense of justice. Thank you for pastors who are pointing me in directions that will hopefully help me to recover, and thank you for preparing my heart to receive your word, allowing me to face my sins and work to overcome them. I ask that you would pull me through and that my life would be a testament to others going through similar struggles.

Help me, Lord, because I need you.

Amen

23 November 2015

Scriptures:

• John 15:1-17
• Isaiah 13-14
• 2 Kings 22
• Psalm 114

Observations:

So, in the John passage, we have a few connected ideas. First, we have the idea that Christ is like a vine and we, the believers, are like branches, which God, as the gardener, trims, pruning the branches bearing fruit and removing those branches failing to do so, the fruit coming necessarily from that connection with Christ, abiding in his love, as is alluded to further on in the passage, keeping the commandments given to us by Christ to love one another as Christ loved us, going so far, as Christ did, to lay down our lives for our brothers, that our joy may be full, for we were chosen by Christ to bear fruit and, in so doing, give glory to God. Second, we have the assurance that we are indeed in the vine, found in verse 3, meaning that we need only to seek after God and follow Christ in his path and instruction to the best of our ability, relying on Christ to carry us beyond where we can in ourselves go.

In Isaiah, we see a very long prophecy against Babylon. In essence, Babylon will not only be destroyed, but laid bare, fallen in disgrace. Whether this is an already-fulfilled prophecy (Which I think is so, because of reference to the Medes) or a prophecy about end times events, I cannot say for certainty. Additionally, We see a small prophecy against the Philistines.

In 2 Kings, we see Josiah commanding repairs of the temple and, in the process, one of his secretaries comes across the book of the law and brings it to Josiah, who, in grief at the sin of Jerusalem and Judah tears his clothes in grief and seeks the Lord in regards to his wrath, the answer from the prophetess being that Judah would indeed face God's wrath, but because of Josiah's contrition, it would not be during his lifetime.

The psalm is praising God for his greatness such that, when Israel was emerging from Egypt into the promised land, the mountains and hills fled in the face of the Lord.

Application:

The John passage is very encouraging to me in this current phase, because, as I first read verse 2, I lump myself in the former category, but in verses 3 and 4, I see that I, as a follower of Christ, am counted in the latter category and am encouraged, instead to abide in Christ, being reminded that this is nothing that I can do of my own power, but, in reliance upon Christ, I am made able to bear fruit.

Today is a good bit of encouragement to continue waging war on my sin, to overcome and work towards reconciliation, honouring both God and my wife.

22 November 2015

Scriptures:

• John 14
• Isaiah 11-12
• 2 Kings 21
• Psalm 113

Observations:

In the John passage, Jesus is talking with his disciples after washing their feet about the Kingdom of God and how he will be going ahead to prepare a place for them. He also expounds upon how we can know God, the Father, by knowing God, the Son, and showing the disciples that anyone who claims to love him will follow in obedience. He also promises a helper to come to them after he leaves.

Application:

Firstly, we can see that to love God is to obey. We know that Jesus is the only way to heaven, that he is preparing a place for us and has given us the Holy Spirit as a counselor and empowerment, but the idea that any who love him will act in obedience to him is important.